Set in the universe of award-winning browser adventure Fallen London, Sunless Sea puts the player at the helm of a steamship on a vast underground ocean. Failbetter is launching a £60,000 crowd-funding campaign for Sunless Sea on Kickstarter, beginning Tuesday 3rd September. The game is pencilled for release in May 2014.

"We're trying to combine the the sense of danger you get from a roguelike games like Don't Starve and FTL with the rich storytelling engine we've perfected in Fallen London," says Failbetter CEO Alexis Kennedy, "so while the unexplored areas of the map will shuffle every time you play, there will always be deep and choice-filled stories to discover."

Sunless Sea will be an offline experience, although Failbetter is planning to enable Fallen London players to carry some of their character & story choices into the new game.

Sunless Sea is built in Unity3D, but the developers are taking a classic top-down 2D approach in order to preserve the established art style of Fallen London. Light and shadow are key features: without light you cannot navigate, and your crew will quickly become terrified and mutinous, but your ship's searchlight burns fuel and attracts sea monsters.

"People have been asking us to extend the experience of Fallen London beyond text and still images practically from day one," says Kennedy. "With Sunless Sea and Kickstarter, we're finally able to do that."